Serb-Albanian History According to SANU Historian
Tuesday, 7 December, 2004
Serb-Albanian History According to SANU Historian
Tuesday, 7 December, 2004
Attempting to bring his testimony into the modern era, the witness gave his opinion that three historical events had a decisive impact on the current situation in Kosovo. 1. The Osmanli conquest in the 15th Century, which was a victory for Islam over Christianity. 2. The policy of the Great Powers over the last 200 years to control the Balkans by fomenting conflict and creating satellite states. 3. The Communist Party’s promotion of differences which, he claims, stopped integration.
According to Terzic, the Serbs were the majority in Kosovo until the early 20th Century when the ethnic balance swung in favor of Albanians. The ethnic change was effected in three phases, he testified. 1. From the end of the 17th Century to the mid-19th Century. The war of the “Christian European League” with Turkey [Ottoman Empire] resulted in Serbs withdrawing from the province, while Albanian shepherds migrated in from Albania. 2. From 1887 (founding of the Prizren League) to 1912. Terzic testified that 150,000 Serbs were ethnically cleansed from Kosovo and forced to move to the Kingdom of Serbia. 3. During and after WWII. Fascist Greater Albania expelled 100,000 Serbs, while 100,000 Albanians moved into Kosovo. The greatest change, he maintains, occurred between 1945 and 1990, when 250,000 Serbs were expelled from the province due to pressure from “separatists and extreme nationalists.”
Without providing details, Milosevic’s history expert concluded that Serbs were driven out of the province between 1878 and 1912 by terror, violence and crimes. In addition to reading titles from books on the period that suggest Albanian violence against Serbs, he cited a few incidents of expulsions and the destitution of a Serb village where soldiers were billeted.
In Terzic’s view, the problem in Kosovo was the Albanian pursuit of a Greater Albania to include Albania proper, Kosovo and parts of Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia and Northern Greece. He traced the concept back to the 1878 Prizren League which he identified as “Pan-Islamic.” From that time to the present, he testified, the idea of a Greater Albania has been continuous and supported by international powers, including the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, NATO and others.
The witness identified four pillars forming the ideological foundations of Greater Albania: Pan-Islamism, Pan-Illyrianism, ethnic purity for Albanian lands, disagreement with borders established by colonial powers. He presented a series of maps from the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, showing an area described as Greater Albania. Judge Patrick Robinson asked whether he had any historical evidence to prove that the maps reflect a political policy. There is “countless evidence,” Terzic responded, citing the Program of the Prizren League, a 1940 speech by the prime minister of the “puppet” Albanian government operating under Fascist Italy, a 1995 Memorandum of the Forum of Albanian Intellectuals, and a 1998 Platform of the Albanian Academy of Science. Judge Robinson was not satisfied with statements by intellectuals, but asked again whether the policy was embraced by the “political directorate.”
“Absolutely,” Terzic responded. Everything that was done by Albanian policy-makers starting in 1912 when Albania was created . . . [such as subversive actions, incursion of terrorists] shows that the goal was to unite Albanians in one state.” Skipping ahead to present time, he added that “Albania has recognized the illegally proclaimed Republic of Kosovo,” though he did not explain how this supported the existence of having a political goal for a Greater Albania.
Terzic referred to statements by post WWII Albanian Presidents Enver Hoxha and Sali Berisha, though he did not quote them. The only quotation he provided in court was a 1941 (or 1940?) speech by the puppet Albanian prime minister to the effect that Mussolini and Hitler would insure that after victory the Albanian people would gain a national state with the broadest possible ethnic borders. Other evidence he offered to support his conclusion that a Greater Albania was the goal of Albanian political actors amounted to questionable inferences, such as the fact that certain slogans chanted during “Albanian insurgencies of 1986, 1989, 1990” reflected Albanian policies. He did not explain what he meant by “insurgencies,” though some of the dates correspond to popular demonstrations by Kosovar Albanians.
Later in his testimony, Terzic cited the Prizren Trial in 1956 where nine Kosovar Albanians were convicted of espionage for the Albanian Security Services as evidence of a deep, well-organized Greater Albanian organization. He also testified that the Kosovo Albanian leadership had secret ties to Enver Hoxha, Communist head of Albania. There was further evidence, he said, that the Yugoslav state security organs knew about the connection but did nothing to interrupt it. Terzic did not provide evidence to support his conclusion.
Other evidence the expert relied on also undermined his expertise. An example is his response to Judge Robinson’s request for a map later than 1982 which showed Greater Albania. Terzic cited a 1999 map allegedly by the “Terrorist Albanian National Liberation Army,” which can be found on the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s website. Judge Kwon advised Milosevic’s expert witness that citing to a website is not sufficient to qualify as evidence.
Terzic spent considerable time presenting evidence about Albanian support for Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in WWII, including the formation of an Albanian SS Division, commission of crimes against Serbs, and detention and deportation of all Kosovo’s Jews to Bergen-Belsen. He blamed the Communist Party that came to power in Yugoslavia after WWII for failing to hold Albanian war criminals accountable and for not de-Nazifying Kosovo Albanians who colluded with Germany during the war. Indeed, he accused the Communist Party of having the greatest responsibility for the fate of Yugoslavia by using nationalism as a vehicle for carrying out socialist revolution. To weaken Serb hegemony, which Tito saw as the main obstacle to Communism, Tito’s Communists divided Yugoslavia into republics. They also prevented Serbs who had been expelled from returning to Kosovo, making possible the large scale ethnic cleansing of Serbs from WWII to 1990, he testified.
In his first full day of testifying, Terzic presented the Serb national view of the historically troubled relationship between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo. For an expert witness, his view of history was unusually one-sided. Throughout the centuries he discussed, he never once referred to an Albanian victim of Serb oppression or, indeed, to any Serb fault. While stating that history is complex, the view he presented was quite simple: Albanians have been aggressing against Serbs for over 100 years, striving to annex the Serb heartland of Kosovo a part of a Greater Albania.
His testimony was also seriously weakened by his failure to support it with relevant documents and by relying instead on conclusions he reached, presumably from reading and studying original sources most of which were either not identified or not available to the Court.
One example is emblematic of the problems with his evidence. He testified that the Pan-Islamist nature of the Kosovo Albanian political movement was evident from the photograph he saw on Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova’s wall of Rugova with the Roman Catholic Pope. The logic supporting that inference is an impossible leap for those outside the hallowed halls of SANU. According to my (anonymous) expert source, the thinking goes like this. The photograph is meant to deceive. Showing himself with the leader of Roman Catholicism is Rugova’s way of hiding his true intentions for a Pan-Islamic world. Unfortunately for the witness and Milosevic, it is highly unlikely the judges made this inferential leap either.
Terzic’s testimony continues tomorrow.
